LSU Health New Orleans Faculty Invited to Present at Cancer Moonshot Community Conversation

May 4, 2022

Dr. Augusto Ochoa, Deputy Director of the Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center and Chair of the Department of Interdisciplinary Oncology at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, and Dr. Xiao-Cheng Wu, Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Louisiana Tumor Registry at LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health, were invited panelists for the Cancer Moonshot Community Conversation held on May 4, 2022. The event comprised a daylong series of virtual roundtable discussions hosted by federal agencies and departments of the Cancer Cabinet to inform and advance Cancer Moonshot priorities. According to the White House, the Cancer Cabinet is a “central driver of President Biden’s vision for a whole-of-government approach to ending cancer as we know it.”

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Cancer Moonshot Community Conversation panels focused on such areas as gender equity and cancer care, diversity initiatives, tobacco cessation, cancer prevention in primary care and rural health settings, preventing cancer through healthy eating, and accelerating lung cancer care and research, among others. Dr. Wu presented on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Perspective on Cancer and the Environment Panel. Dr. Ochoa presented on the National Cancer Institute’s Doubling Clinical Trials Accrual Panel.

Then Vice President Joe Biden launched his National Cancer Moonshot Initiative six years ago to make significant strides in the war on cancer. To help guide its efforts, the National Cancer Institute appointed a 28-member Blue Ribbon Panel of scientific experts, cancer leaders and patient advocates. Dr. Ochoa was one of its scientific experts and cancer leaders and the only member from Louisiana.

In February 2022, President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden revitalized the Cancer Moonshot, setting a new national goal – to “reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years and improve the experience of patients and families living with and surviving cancer.”

Dr. Ochoa and his colleagues were recently recognized by the National Cancer Institute for being among the top 5 community sites for cancer clinical trial participation.

Under Dr. Wu’s direction, LSU Health New Orleans’ Louisiana Tumor Registry is one of only 21 cancer registries in the country comprising the National Cancer Institute’s SEER Program and one of the few in the nation reporting cancer incidence and survival data at the census tract level.